Monica Lewinsky Considered Suicide After Clinton Affair: I Remember Thinking of Jumping Out the Window

Monica Lewinsky revealed that she grappled with suicidal thoughts when federal authorities were investigating her in 1998 over her liaison with former president Bill Clinton.

Previews for A&E’s upcoming docuseries The Clinton Affair show Lewinsky talking about her crush on Clinton, which led to their infamous affair and the national scandal that followed after. When Lewinsky spoke of how she cooperated with the FBI over the affair, she recalled “I felt so much guilt, and I was terrified” as she was being questioned.

“There was this point for me somewhere in the first several hours where I would be hysterically crying and then I would just shut down,” Lewinsky said. “In the shut-down period, I remember looking out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself, was to jump out the window.”

Lewinsky went on to say through her tears that “I was just mortified and afraid of what this was going to do to my family.”

“I know I was still in love with Bill at the time,” she said, “so I felt really responsible.”